1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to dump valves used in automatic washing machines and more particularly, is concerned with a novel dump valve which allows the user to select where the rinse water will be disposed by being able to divert the draining rinse water from the normal sewer drain port to an alternate drain port for reuse elsewhere and thus conserve a precious natural resource, namely water.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In arid areas water is a precious natural resource and today's automatic clothes washing machines with the presently available drain systems do not offer any water conservation feature which allows a secondary use of the clean rinse water. Presently, automatic clothes washing machines are provided with drain systems that are activated by control circuitry and generally involve a pump of the impeller type drawing wash or rinse water from a sump and forcing the wash or rinse water to an appropriate sewer drain or septic tank connection. These type of drain systems do not lend themselves to conveniently divert the use of the drain water, especially the clean rinse water, unless possibly some cumbersome manual coordinated method is employed. The result is that the rinse water is not utilized and other water is used in its place to further deplete the water supply. Dump valves available do not offer the water conservationalist a solution for tapping into this readily available water source to prevent further depletion of the water supply.
Consequently, a need exists for a device which can be an integral part of a washing machine drain system and which can be activated at will during the rinse cycle portion of the wash cycle and divert the rinse water from a sewer drain to an alternate drain and serve a useful purpose and thus conserve on water.